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COLLECTION 


BGDFL  PLATE 
D  ESIGNS 


"BY 

LOUIS 
RHEAD 


W- PORTER 
TRUESDELL 
PUBLISHER. 


2021488 


ELDOM  is  it  that  knights  of 
the  brush  whose  work  is  of  a 
like  high  quality  are  as  prolific 
and  wide  in  range  of  talent  as 
Louis  Rhead,  who  paints  in  oils 
and  water  colors,  draws  and 
etches.  He  is  also  an  expert  on  bookbinding, 
and  at  the  time  when  posters  wrere  in  vogue  was 
known  as  one  of  the  foremost  designers,  having 
won  a  number  of  medals  in  competitions  and  ex- 
hibitions, and  has  several  hundred  designs  to 
his  credit. 

Mr.  Rhead  came  to  this  country  in  1883,  and 
at  once  became  very  active  in  his  art,  painting 
pictures  which  have  been  exhibited  in  the  prin- 
cipal cities  of  this  country,  in  the  Paris  Salon, 
and  Royal  Academy  of  London. 

Mr.  Rhead  was  born  in  an  artistic  atmos- 
phere, Etruria,  Staffordshire,  in  which  town  the 
celebrated  potteries  of  Josiah  Wedgewood  & 


Sons  were  made.  The  members  of  his  imme- 
diate family  are  all  artists;  his  elder  brother  is  a 
member  of  the  London  Society  of  Painter-Etch- 
ers, and  was  the  friend  of  Rossetti,  George 
Frederick  Watts,  Madox  Brown  and  other  ar- 
tists of  note,  of  whose  work  he  has  executed 
many  large  plates.  Mr.  Rhead's  father  and 
mother,  two  sisters  and  two  brothers  have  also 
made  reputations  in  the  art  world. 

Mr.  Rhead  seriously  began  to  study  art  at  the 
age  of  thirteen,  under  the  French  painter 
Boullemier.  He  learned  to  draw  the  human 
figure  remarkably  well,  and  won  a  national 
scholarship,  which  enabled  him  to  study  at 
South  Kensington.  Four  years  later  he  was 
well  launched  on  his  artistic  career,  and  was 
earning  a  comfortable  income.  He  was  still  an 
industrious  student,  however,  and  improved  his 
art  by  work  under  Legros  Dalou,  the  sculptor, 
and  Sir  Edward  Poynter,  President  of  the  Royal 
Academy. 

After  devoting  himself  for  a  time  to  making 
sketches  and  paintings  of  rural  England,  Mr. 
Rhead  was  engaged  by  the  publishing  house  of 
Appleton,  New  York,  and,  at  the  age  of  twen- 


ty-four,  came  to  this  country,  where  he  has 
since  remained,  except  during  the  intervals  of 
several  trips  to  London  and  Paris. 

The  artistic  publications  of  the  Grolier  Club, 
of  which  Mr.  Rhead  has  been  a  member  since 
1887,  owe  much  to  his  fine  skill  in  bookbind- 
ing and  cover  designing.  Among  the  best  and 
most  representative  examples  of  his  designs  are 
the  inside  and  outside  covers  of  a  new  edition 
of  "Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York," 
by  Irving.  Mr.  Rhead  recently  illustrated  and 
decorated  a  number  of  books  of  classic  litera- 
ture, among  them  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress*' 
and  "Mr.  Badman,"  by  Bunyan,  "Idyls  of  the 
King,"  "Robinson  Crusoe"  and  the  "Psalms  of 
David." 

He  regards  his  illustrations  in  black  and 
white  of  Bunyan's  works,  and  particularly  of 
"Mr.  Badman,"  as  his  highest  achievements 
thus  far.  These  drawings,  which  were  done 
in  collaboration  with  his  brothers,  George  and 
Frederick,  are  so  strong  and  virile  that  they 
have  given  new  interest  and  fresh  life  to  Bun- 
yan's classics,  which  were  beginning  to  come 
into  the  category  of  books  often  referred  to  but 


rarely  read.  Louis  Rhead  made  the  larger  part 
of  the  drawings.  They  are  in  the  style  of  the 
old  German  engravings  and  seem  to  precisely 
reflect  the  essence  of  Bunyan's  powerful  and 
gloomy  imagination,  and  also  the  quaint  and 
picturesque  England  of  the  roundhead  writer's 
time.  The  grotesque  and  fearsome  allegorical 
figures,  the  giants  and  the  dragons  have,  in 
many  of  the  pictures,  typically  English  back- 
grounds. This  combination  results  in  a  very 
effective  representation  of  Bunyan's  genius. 

In  his  book-plate  designs  Mr.  Rhead  has 
been  equally  successful;  and  seems  to  have 
brought  to  this  branch  of  art  all  the  originali- 
ty, decorativeness  and  perfection  of  his  larger 
and  more  pretentious  work.  His  tendency  to- 
ward the  decorative  received  an  added  impetus 
from  his  appreciation  of  the  masterly  designs  of 
Eugene  Grasset,  whom  he  regards  as  the  great- 
est living  master  of  decorative  design.  As  a 
rule,  the  designing  of  book-plates  seems  to  have 
been  given  over  to  the  so-called  decorative  de- 
signers, who,  while  excellent  in  their  particular 
field  would  not  come  under  the  same  head  as 
those  who,  like  Mr.  Rhead,  devote  the  most  of 


their  time  to  painting  in  the  illustrative  vein, 
so  it  is  of  moment  when  artists  like  Mr.  Rhead 
have  turned  their  attention  to  the  book-plate, 
and  given  us  some  beautiful  examples  which 
reflect  the  breadth  and  maturity  of  the  practised 
artist.  A  number  of  the  plates  herewith  show 
the  force  of  this  in  their  general  sketchiness  as 
in  the  Swan  design:  for  beautiful  decorative  de- 
signs, the  Peacock  and  Pool  plates;  for  studies  of 
the  human  figure  all  the  plates  and  particularly 
the  two  architectural  designs  and  the  Turnure, 
Barhydt  and  Katharine  Rhead  plates.  Always 
an  ardent  sportsman,  Mr.  Rhead  has  latterly  de- 
voted himself  to  out  of  door  subjects,  and  his 
books  on  Lake  and  Brook  Trout,  Fresh  and 
Salt  Water  Bass  are  among  the  most  admired 
of  the  nature  books.  Mr.  Rhead's  fishing  plate 
is  shown  herewith  also  the  handsome  plate  of 
the  Ivy  Club  of  Princeton  University. 


KATHARINE/RHEAtf 


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the  book&  of 


KATHARINE^RHEAD 


MAJORIBUSM  PERPETUQ  QUAESITHS 


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FRANK  cJ-POOL 


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